this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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YouTube's argument is the same as Linus' from LTT: if you watch a video without ads, you're failing to comply with your side of the transaction, thus essentially pirating that content and stealing the revenue source.
Regardless if we agree or not with that statement, I'll absolutely side with adblockers always for a deeper issue: it's my screen, so I get the ultimate say on what content gets rendered. Quite literally. It's my network, my cable, my screen, my graphics card, my web browser running JavaScript on my CPU - you do not, ever, get to overreach and decide what pixels show up or not. If I don't want your obnoxious ad for an AI girlfriend to show up, there's no moral argument to be had here.
EDIT: I think some of you are missing the point of this comment. There's no reason to reply to me countering the argument in the first paragraph, as it is not my comment, in fact, I specifically mentioned how it's YouTube (and Linus') argument.
I was happy with an ad at the side of the video. Then they started popping up over my video, then they started appearing before my video, then they started appearing throughout my video. Companies shot themselves in the foot with online advertising, banner ads and such weren't much of a problem, but once ads start disrupting the content we visit a site for, then we look to block them ads. More people blocking ads is less revenue, so they make the ads more aggressive... and the cycle continues.
And on a side note, Linus can fuck off.
That and the large ad networks even on sites like YouTube and Facebook literally are advertising scams. Every time I browse shorts on either I get ads that are obvious scams of the "There's a new $6400 monthly health credit see if you qualify." variety. On one of Meta's apps I got an ad that was for male enhancement that was straight up clips of uncensored hardcore porn. Not just nudity but full on PIV sex. If they can't even do the work to properly screen their ads they can get fucked, I'm blocking all of it that I can.
Yeah I don't mind ads if they're relevant - I scroll through insta reels from time to time, and am always getting ads about concerts I'm interested in, restaurants I haven't tried and sales at shops I go to.
I honestly don't mind so much, and if it's not relevant to me I can scroll past without having to watch.
In order to get relevant ads you have to opt in to give them your data. Do you do that?
In order to use the platform in the EU, you either opt into personalised ads or pay a monthly subscription. So yes, I'm aware they're using my data for the ads.
Google does as well, but they don't seem to be able to offer me even relatively relevant ads based on my interests.
Non disruptive ads were meant to advertise.
Slightly annoying ads were meant to be seen more, since people just ignored banners by default.
Hidden ads (like an ad in an article which you really could tell it was an ad) were meant to increase the image of a company.
Disruptive ads like in YouTube or Spotify aren't meant for advertising. They don't really care about the advertising money, they want to force you to buy premium. The more annoying the ad is the higher the chances you pay 20€ a month for them to go away.
These days maybe, but disruptive ads started way before subscriptions became a thing.
Yeah, the pre-ads (unstoppable) and the massively increased loading times of the basic Youtube page makes it impossible to successfully Rickroll people
By that logic using a VCR to record television and fast-forwarding adverts is piracy.
And you see digital tv providers trying to implement fast forward blockers without chasing away their customers too much
Any time I fast forward and have to wait for a commercial that interrupted my fast forwarding, it's an immediate cancelation of the service and I'm on the phone with customer support to try and get my couple of bucks for that month back.
Fuck your shitty service, I'm grabbing my hat and sword.
That argument was in fact made when VCRs first came out. I don’t remember how exactly it played out but in the end the courts here in the US said that VCRs were fine.
At least a few TV service DVRs stop you from skipping ads.
Some even from forwarding at all through the actual content...
TBH I'm just so fucking tired of ads overstepping, back in the day there's be a little banner on the side of a page advertising a truck or whatever, I'm sick of seeing like, enormous length ads.
One day I had a 3 hour minecraft let's play uploaded as an ad, you think I should have to watch all of that youtube?
And the frequency is getting crazy.
I fucking hate billboards man. Get them OUT.
When YouTube Red first dropped they were putting hour-long pilot episodes of their shows as pre-roll ads. Now I notice ads on shorts are full of obvious scams related to "new monthly health credits". Still better than getting an ad on Facebook reels that was uncensored hardcore porn.
You know what, I actually agree with YouTube's argument. Ad blocking is piracy. In fact, no, it's worse than piracy. If I pirate a movie, Disney makes no money, but it costs them nothing at all. If I watch YouTube without an ad blocker, I'm depriving YouTube of its revenue source and I'm costing them money. Morally, ad blocking sits somewhere between piracy and actual theft.
The thing is? I don't care. I ad block YouTube all the time and feel not a lick of guilt. The reason: Google brought this on themselves. I used to happily pay for YouTube Red. But they have continuously, both before and after that point, been actively hostile to the people actually producing the content they make. Their willingness to bow down to copyright trolls and complete inability to properly apply fair use. They extremely harsh policies on acceptable content, stopping people talking about sex education or mediaeval weaponry being able to reliably makes money.
And the straw that broke this camel's back was when they changed the requirements to be in the Partner Program, locking out all the smaller creators from ever being able to make money on YouTube. I never considered myself a "creator", but over the 5 years prior to that I occasionally uploaded stuff I was doing anyway. I had amassed almost $100 over those 5 years. Not an impressive amount, for sure, but having that taken away from me made me feel unwelcome. I don't think I've uploaded anything public since, and I've been blocking ads on the site since then.
Even worse, not long after this change, they decided to start showing ads even on videos from non-partnered videos, so you can get ads on my videos even though I don't see a single cent.
So fuck YouTube. Ad blocking is worse than piracy, and I say good.
Google: You're pirating our content!
Us: Yeah, so what?
My god… are you… me? Same exact shit. Created my YT account 14 years ago. Made some vids… some got some views… eventually I got a few dollars deposited like for 3 years. Probably totaled the same $100 you mentioned then boom. Shut down.
I uploaded what I think was the first tutorial on how to use Photoshop's then-new "Content-Aware Fill" to help create panoramas, and also a tutorial about...something, I forget what, to do with the music engraving software Sibelius. They were things I was doing all the time, but there didn't seem to be any guide on how to do it, so I thought I'd help out. And I got rewarded with a little cash and a few tens of thousands of views. Felt good.
There are much better, higher-polish videos that deal with those subjects now, I'm sure. But still, it didn't feel good getting that ripped out from under me, and being told I was no longer welcome.
I’d agree with that logic if YouTube kept up their end of the bargain and actually vetted their ad buyers. Instead they show ads for fake stimulus scams, fake news, and blatant malware.
I manage a large network and ads are blocked at the edge of the network. Not using an adblocker is a security risk that is not acceptable for my company. I pay for YouTube premium because it’s in my means and I get value from the subscription but I don’t blame anyone who takes the same approach
You must MITM all traffic and do some magic with stripping/injecting JavaScript then? Because every time I've tried with pihole, its just threads and threads of people saying its not possible with DNS blocking because the ads are served from the video servers.
We also deploy a browser extension via GPO/Intune to catch those and protect endpoints when they are off net.
I actually wasn’t in favor of that but the rest of team was so after risk assessing it, we determined that trusting a vendor with the permission to rewrite webpages was less of a risk than drive-by malware or phishing/redirection from a malicious ad
They said they pay for YouTube premium so they might not have to block YouTube ads
TL;DR: my property rights trump Youtube's business model.
The problem is that there is that ad networks and ad placements are just bad actors in the consumer space. Not only has malware been passed time and time again with ads but also false ads to malware. When that happens suddenly the content creator/website/whatever 'isn't responsible' for it. Then there's the issue of ads being placed everywhere slowing down websites but even worse, getting in the way with auto play audio and video, videos autoscrolling over the content you're trying to read or whatever, etc.
As a consumer, I should not and ethically do not need to worry about another's business model. If the business model fails simply because I don't allow something that model depends on to traverse my network then it is on them to figure it out. If the ads get in the way of the content, then I just want consume the content anyway.
Some news websites use Ad Admiral or whatever it is called and I haven't bothered trying to bypass the adblock wall for them. I just simply consume the content elsewhere.
If ads were ever responsibly used or perhaps could be argued that there is compromise where consumers wouldn't mind, then there'd probably be a lot less ad blocker usage. It's like anything else. When it takes less effort to install an adblocker to have an OK experience, then ad blockers will be popular.
I was around before ad blockers were very popular and even before pop-up blockers were around. Ads kept getting worse which is why ad blockers became more popular and more sophisticated. The Internet had ads for years before ad blockers were the norm.
Yeah I wasn’t using an Adblock on YouTube when this all started. Then the ads got so intrusive it was seriously hindering content. These days I don’t watch much YouTube, but it’s with Adblock
I mean, the argument falls short when YT (or LTT) spew literal garbage. I might have a hint of sympathy if it wasn't a dumpster fire of decaying babies.
The few people I sub do and do yt as a monitory source, I support elsewhere. Fuck YouTube acting as a sleezy middle-man and simultaneously playing the victim.
if a content creator doesnt want people to be able to skip the ads/demonetize the content, then they should post on a platform that makes ads mandatory.
problem is that no one will watch crap on that sort of platform
Linus Short Sebastian is an asshole. I like his channel and even bought a water bottle, but he is an asshole nontheless. His opinions are always 5 years outdated. He used to hate reddit but now liked Reddit. Probably a contrarian too.
Another argument proving that Linus Media Group is a bunch of morons
The same Linus who can't be arsed to spend $500 of various people's time to properly test a product is now telling us what to do?